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Water-rich township battles against pollution
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WITH the largest bodies of fresh water in Shanghai, Qingpu District enjoys the reputation as a water town.
It boasts 93 lakes — 21 natural ones and 72 artificial ones — as well as 1,934 waterways that stretch 2,408 kilometers. The largest lake, Dianshanhu Lake, is a nationally designated water conservancy scenic spot. Since the district sits on the upper reaches of the Huangpu River that divides Shanghai into two, its environmental protection efforts exert a huge influence on the quality of water downstream.
On June 5, the World Environment Day, scores of environmental volunteers gathered in Jinze Township of western Qingpu. They took up dip nets and removed floating water plants littering the main river that cut through the township center, as part of an event sponsored by AbinBev — the company that owns brands such as Budweiser — to raise public awareness of water pollution.
Sixty-six kilometers from the metropolitan areas of Shanghai and bordering Dianshanhu Lake on the north, Jinze has the largest bodies of water among all townships in Qingpu. Of all the 21 natural lakes, Jinze has 19, and there are more than 300 rivers within its jurisdiction. Its efforts to clean up the waterways thus afford a glimpse into the district-wide campaign against water pollution.
“Aquatic plants such as duckweed and water hyacinth are the main pollutants,” said Zhu Xuesheng, director of the district’s water resource agency. Zhu told Shanghai Daily that there is a seasonal spike in water pollution with the outbreak of the dreaded pest water hyacinth in summer. “Water hyacinths decompose and emit ammonia, which pollutes the water,” said Zhu.
Since Jinze has already shut down a large majority of the polluting businesses upstream, the threat to water quality mainly comes from aquatic plants. Removing them turned out to be more difficult than expected.
“The biggest challenge is the lack of proper machinery to remove the aquatic plants from the rivers and lakes,” Shen Minhua told reporters. Shen heads the sanitation agency of Jinze Township.
Owing to a shortage of funds from both the district- and municipal-level governments earmarked for the purchase of machinery, much of the cleanup work was done manually by scavengers who spend entire days scooping weeds, dead plants and rubbish out of the water and tossing them onto patrol boats.
To better educate the public about the threat to water quality, the township government issued a notice asking residents who live along the shores not to chuck foam plastics into rivers, another major pollutant. Offenders caught will be fined, said Xu Hui, vice township governor, without specifying the amount. Fines are stiff for polluting factories, with a maximum of 10,000 yuan.
Unadulterated beauty
For Jinze, a serene township of 60,000 residents, the government’s mandate to preserve its pristine, unadulterated beauty as a traditional water town has spared it the worst of industrial pollution that often turns China’s water black and rank. Over these decades, polluters have been shuttered or ordered to relocate, and what little industry Jinze now has mainly focuses on small-scale light manufacturing or handicrafts, with the least impact to the environment.
The exodus of industry has contributed to the improvement of water quality district-wide, but the effect is more acutely felt in western Qingpu, where there is less industry. According to the 2014 Qingpu Environmental Bulletin, water quality in the western parts of the district is appreciably better than in the eastern areas. However, the relocation of factories means loss of revenues, which Jinze badly needs to buy equipment to battle pollution. Although Jinze is a recipient of environmental subsidies that remunerate localities for rejection of industry, they represent only a fraction of the money considered necessary to make a difference. “We still need subsidies to cover 50 percent of our operations,” Shen told Shanghai Daily.
Therefore, he desperately calls upon the municipal and district governments to provide fiscal and policy support.
“Since Jinze’s rivers flow from neighboring provinces (Zhejiang and Jiangsu) and there are a lot of tributaries, a water crisis that emanated out of town can become a local one,” Shen said.
He said Jinze is on the frontline of a battleground against external water pollution. He cited the example of the dead pig carcasses that floated on the Huangpu River last year. “Such incidents have sounded the alarm for us who live upstream.”
“My biggest expectation is that governments can invest more and make Jinze’s rivers cleaner by the day,” he said.
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